More Final Fantasy

[MJW (ya that one)]

By my count the Berserker only got bailed out three times (at exactly the right time). There's "only" a 44% chance of hurricane hitting. It very possible that he cheated because he said he only needed ten tries. Does anyone else have thoughts about this?

[Trasson]

By my count the Berserker only got bailed out three times (at exactly the right time). There's "only" a 44% chance of hurricane hitting. It very possible that he cheated because he said he only needed ten tries. Does anyone else have thoughts about this?

Probably legit. Assassin's Dagger has a 1 in 4 chance to cast Death, times 4 in 5 (decreasing to 1 in 2 as the Barriers die) to hit a Reflected target. So phase 1 has a 20% chance every attack to pull a full heal (going down to 12.5%).

Phase 2 Necro has a 1 in 3 chance for Death as his second action every fourth turn.

Let's say you need at least two heals on the first phase and one on the second phase, and to get them at fairly opportune times. Call it between attacks 3 and 5 and 6 and 8 on phase 1, and sometime in the first two rounds on phase 2.

Three rounds straight without a heal would be 80% cubed, or just around 50%. So, call it two coinflips to pass Phase 1.

Phase 2 is easier to calculate. No Death in two rounds is 2/3 squared, or 4/9. That gives us a 5/9 chance to make it through.

1/2 times 1/2 times 5/9 is 5/36, or just under 1 in 7 chance to win. These are all estimations, and it's not considering unlucky Maelstroms (which has about a 40% chance to hit after considering level, Aegis Shield, and magic evade), but this also isn't considering a lucky string of blocks giving extra rounds to get a heal above my estimates. If you really wanted to hedge your bets, I'd say halve those odds.

So I'd put the chance of victory somewhere between 1 in 7 and 1 in 14 per attempt. That's nowhere near implausible to do in ten attempts. There's only a few rooms with actually dangerous enemies between the save point and Necro (Iron Giants), and Thornlet/Gaia Hammer (on SFC/PS1) or Chicken Knife fleeing (on GBA) will get you through with little issue. Ten attempts would matbe be a few hours which is the blink of an eye in RPG challenge run time

Sent from my LG-D631 using Tapatalk

[System Error]

If being me has taught me anything, it's that if there's a way through things, it's possible to make it through. Within reason, and like 1/14ish at worst is nowhere near out of the realm of unreasonability. Don't be so quick to dismiss people's stubbornness/masochism~. There's always somebody crazy enough, especially if some PSX FF challenges are any indication (FFT Solo Mediator...)

or Chicken Knife fleeing (on GBA) will get you through with little issue.

Berserker doesn't even need Chicken Knife flees on GBA, it can just run on its own the usual way. Not being able to was a SNES bug.

Speaking of, was trying to get Shinryu with it, but it's not cooperating so far. Ugh, wish I had been recording that one time. Good thing from being able to run from that fight is that if Mighty Guard shows up too early, that can be done. Still really bad overall, though.

[Sullla]

The class right next to the Black Mage probably isn't a surprise.



Summoner
Overall Ranking: 12/26 [Tier 3, Rank 4]
Innate Command: Summon magic
Stats: Strength -10, Agility -1, Vitality: -1, Magic Power +33
Equipment: Daggers, Rods, Light Armor set
Abilities: !Summon 1 (15 ABP), !Summon 2 (30 ABP), !Summon 3 (45 ABP), !Summon 4 (60 ABP), !Summon 5 (100 ABP), !Conjure (500 ABP)
Total ABP to Master: 750 points

Back when I wrote up my report on the solo Summoner, I stated that the Black Mage was a slightly stronger class for a solo game, and I still stand by that judgment. The Black Mage and the Summoner are the two classes that are the most similar in FF5, both of them offensive-oriented spellcasters with poor equipment and a frail health total. The best way to evaluate the Summoner is in reference to the Black Mage class since they have so much in common. The Black Mage gets access to four elements (fire, ice, lightning, poison) while the Summoner gets six of them (fire, ice, lightning, earth, air, water). While that might sound like an easy advantage for the Summoner, it's not quite as clear cut. The Black Mage may have fewer total elements, but he has multiple different strengths on each of them, with Fire 1/2/3 options to play around with in each of his primary three attack spells. In contrast, the Summoner only gets exactly one spell of each element, and the Ifrit/Shiva/Ramuh summons are all but useless by the halfway point of the game. The Black Mage can keep upgrading his spells as he goes and fares better in elemental versatility at the end of the game, with three different powerful spells to choose from. The Summoner is pretty much stuck with just Syldra (air) and Leviathan (water) by the third world, and Leviathan is much less useful than it should be because there are no items that give the "Magic Up" property for Water element. Flare vs. Bahamut is of course a wash, as they both do exactly the same amout of damage and have the same magic defense piercing property.

The Black Mage also has a much smoother progression in terms of increasing the power curve over time. The starting Fire/Ice/Bolt spells are a huge help at getting through the early game, and that's a major factor in the Black Mage's favor. The Summoner has to get past Karlabos, Siren, and Magisa/Forza without any spells, relying on a class with terrible Strength and Vitality to attack with melee dagger. To be fair, the power curve of the Summoner does increase starting at Worus, which is where the Summoner job unlocks normally, but the Black Mage leaps up in usefulness as well immediately thereafter at Karnak, so that's pretty much a wash. The second world is where the Summoner is really supposed to shine, since he has access to the powerful Titan summon, and yet I still found that the Black Mage held up extremely well in the comparison. My solo Black Mage was able to purchase Bio (spell attack 105) immediately at the start of the second world in Rugor, and that was virtually identical to Titan (110) but without Titan's extremely irritating inability to hit flying targets. Then later on in the second world, the Black Mage gets Fire/Ice/Bolt 3 at Mua, and then completely dominates the comparison until the Summoner can get Syldra after the Pyramid in the third world, and even that only pulls the Summoner even with the Black Mage, not ahead. Kick in the fact that the Black Mage can heal himself with Fire spells plus a Flame Ring, and it's not even a comparison: the Black Mage has an easier path for a solo run.

Now that's not to say that the Summoner doesn't have some great abilities too. The Summoner has two excellent utility spells in Golem and Carbunkle that provide powerful defensive protection. Both of these work better in party setting than a solo one, however; Carbunkle can be duplicated for a solo character with a Wall Ring, and Golem can be cast via the Magic Lamp. In fact, that's one of the biggest drawbacks for the Summoner class in general: you can get access to all of the Summon spells just by using the Magic Lamp. The Summoner has Shoat to kill enemies weak against stone attacks, but the Black Mage has Break, again a wash. And the Black Mage has Sleep, Toad, Drain, and Psych, the potential to steal magic points being particularly useful. The Summoner counters with the Conjure ability, which is really good in a party setting where you don't want to waste magic points, and certainly more useful than the Black Mage's MP +30%. However for a solo character, the Black Mage's extra magic points are actually probably the better of the two. I almost never used Conjure with my solo Summoner, as I needed the enemies to be dead right away.

The comparison ends up pretty even on the whole between these two classes, at least for a solo game. The Summoner is a bit better for the endgame due to the usefulness of Golem, but the Black Mage has the smoother and easier overall path from the beginning to the end of the solo run. Like the Black Mage, the Summoner has the same cruddy stats and poor equipment selection, and unlike the Black Mage, the Summoner is forced to use them more often due to the delayed arrival of Summon magic. This is still a great class overall, just ever so slightly weaker than the Black Mage when all is said and done.

The list thus far:


Tier 1: Samurai, Ninja, Chemist
Tier 2: Cannoneer, Gladiator, Mystic Knight, Knight, Blue Mage
Tier 3: Dragoon, Hunter, Black Mage, Summoner

There are four more classes remaining in Tier 3 if you want to try guessing what's left.

[System Error]

A lot copied nearly verbatim from the end of the Summoner report, heh. :P Well, makes sense to save time. Sensible ranking them close but below, yet got a lot to talk about here...

Flare vs. Bahamut is of course a wash, as they both do exactly the same amout of damage and have the same magic defense piercing property.

This is untrue!! Flare has 254 power, Bahamut has 250. It is ever so slightly weaker!! Bahamut does pierce reflect though, so the likes of Omega can eat it, or that specific case could if it weren't terrifying Ramuh and Odin (?!) weren't better. Although that said boosted elemental spells often beat the flares...except again, on the superbosses. To contrast, Shoat (99%) is more accurate than Break (75%), so that front is a slight win for the Summoner.

Interesting fact I learned, by the way: apparently Bio pierces magic defense too - using Attack Type 0C which has Flare's Defense = (Magic Defense/32) bit - in fact Shadow Flare also uses this formula. Blue Mage's Mind Blast also does this.

The big thing Summoner gets with its spells is that even though you can duplicate them with the Magic Lamp, you don't need to refresh it every time and you can use them as much as you please. And even though you can use the ring for Reflect, Summoner can still combo it with haste.

Never really liked Conjure at all even in a party setting. I mean sure sometimes you pull Syldra or Bahamut and save a whole chunk of MP that you could've saved half of with Gold Hairpin. But you're also liable to pull Remora or Shiva or whatever and do jack.

It is super weird that there's no magic up item for water. My only guess why is related to the properties I was mentioning in the description of the status bug - 80 is treated differently in a few special cases, curable status 80 being used to flag (Always) on enemies rather than dead, and element 80 is used to flag a boost to damage rather than water-element like it normally does. It's extra weird considering Chemist can give water-element up. Breaking the rules like always.

[Fenn]

It's simple - on equipment, the same byte is used for elemental boosts and stat modifiers, with bit 7 being reserved to indicate whether the item boosts elements or stats. Water ends up being the odd one out, presumably because it's relatively uncommon in the player's hands. The Elemental Power mix, being a spell effect, doesn't have that restriction.

[Sullla]

And now for something completely different...



Necromancer
Overall Ranking: 13/26 [Tier 3, Rank 5]
Innate Command: Dark Arts
Stats: Strength +4, Agility +1, Vitality: +21, Magic Power +29
Equipment: Daggers, Rods, Light Armor set
Abilities: !Oath (15 ABP), !Dark Arts 1 (30 ABP), !Dark Arts 2 (45 ABP), !Dark Arts 3 (60 ABP), !Dark Arts 4 (100 ABP), !Dark Arts 5 (200 ABP), Undead (300 ABP)
Total ABP to Master: 750 points

The Necromancer is a study in contrasts. This is a class that spends much of the game absolutely crushing everything in its path, only to find itself almost helpless in other situations along the way. The Necromancer is another spellcasting class that specializes in the use of "Dark Arts" magic, which is most similar to Summon magic in terms of how it operates. In order to learn one of the Dark Arts spells, the Necromancer must seek out and defeat certain enemies, learning the applicable Dark Arts immediately after winning the battle. Half of these Dark Arts spells can only be found in the Gameboy Advance bonus dungeon and therefore can never be used during the length of a normal solo run. That said, the ones that do unlock are extremely powerful, with Hellwind (air), Evil Mist (poison) and Meltdown (fire) having a spell attack of 190 comparable to the damage done by Fire/Ice/Bolt 3 or Syldra. Furthermore, like Summon magic the damage from most Dark Arts spells is not cut in half when targeting more than one enemy at a time. When the Necromancer has the appropriate weapon equipped to grant the "Magic Up" property to these spells, the class can absolutely blow away random encounters - and many of the game's bosses - like they're not even there. I've rarely seen any class as dominant as the Wizard Rod-equipped Necromancer annihilating every random encounter with Hellwind after Hellwind in succession.

The biggest problem with Dark Arts as an ability is that none of the spells unlock until the halfway point of the game. Hellwind and Evil Mist can be found in Bal Castle basement and the Hiryuu Valley respectively, both of which are a long way into a solo run. Prior to reaching this point in the second world, the Necromancer must rely on the other class ability of "Oath", a frustratingly random ability that causes one of four monsters to appear and use an ability. Fortunately, the odds are 25% that one of these will be a Flaremancer who casts the Flare spell for about 1000 damage against a single target, easily enough to defeat almost anything in the first world. Unfortunately the other three options are much weaker and they show up 75% of the time, with luck alone dictating what pops out of the ability. The damage from Oath is also fixed and never increases with additional levels, making it much worse than the other starting abilities on the GBA classes like Open Fire and Condemn. Because Oath is so limited and Dark Arts arrives so late, the Necromancer is forced to break rods over and over again to make progress against difficult bosses. Byblos and Sol Cannon would both be completely impossible without resorting to this kind of rod-breaking. The need to do this is one of the reasons why I've placed the class here instead of higher on the list.

I've been tiptoeing around the greatest weakness of the Necromancer class thus far. Here's the glaring problem: the Necromancer is an undead lich who can't be healed under normal circumstances. Potions and Elixirs will hurt the Necromancer instead of healing the class (although Ethers and the MP restoration component of Elixirs work just fine). This is the same way that the Bone Mail works, although the Necromancer actually can't wear the armor because this class is stuck with the Light armor set. That's a bit of a cruel joke since the Necromancer would otherwise be perfect for it. The main way that Necromancers deal with this weakness is not to deal with it by killing opponents with overwhelming Dark Arts damage before their own life runs out. This works in the vast majority of circumstances, including against a good chunk of the game's bosses. Where this doesn't work, the Necromancer is forced to use a Dark Arts spell called Drain Touch, which injures a single opponent for roughly 1000 damage and heals the same amount back to the Necromancer. Drain Touch is much weaker than the rest of the Dark Arts employed by the Necromancer, however, and the need to keep pausing from spamming 5000+ damage multi-targeted Hellwinds to use Drain Touch against a single foe causes a serious downgrade to the offensive power of the Necromancer. It also makes all of the act-ending bosses very difficult opponents for this class even as the Necromancer powers through most other enemies without breaking a sweat.

The Necromancer is the only class in the game to combine together high Vitality with high Magic Power. And I mean really high Vitality: the Necromancer has higher Vitality than the Knight and the Samurai, with only the Monk having a larger HP total. The class certainly needs all of that extra health too given that it can't make use of normal healing. As for the equipment, this job has the standard for an offensive spellcaster with access to rods along with the default daggers. Once again, the lack of shields is a real setback and contributes to the physical punishment that this class often takes. I found that the Necromancer class had a terribly difficult time with the final endgame boss, where the huge health totals of the Exdeath Tree and Neo Exdeath forced many long rounds of Drain Touch healing, and therefore opened up the class to constant White Hole / Grand Cross danger. The Necromancer even has to worry about running out of MP in the last battle, since Elixirs can't be used for health restoration and even having a Gold Hairpin equipped isn't enough to stop all those Dark Arts spells from running the class dry. It's hard to put in words how binary this class can be from a difficulty perspective, where the solo Necromancer can blast through the entire third world in an hour or two with no trouble... and then spend those same two hours trying to get past Exdeath at the end of world two or world three.

This was a difficult class to rank. I ended up placing it here in the middle of the tier list, under the logic that the huge trouble with endgame bosses and the weakness of Oath in the early game were countered by the extreme ease with which the Necromancer was able to blast away most opponents after acquiring Hellwind and Evil Mist. I could see a case being made to rank this class both higher and lower depending on how an individual weighs the ranking criteria. For better or for worse, this is one of the more unique classes in the game.

[MJW (ya that one)]

This is the cheapest thing ever so it doesn't count but I want to show you:


No wonder people tell you to break rods...

[greenline]

Favoring necromancer over oracle feels like taking ease of use as the most important factor; the oracle coasts much more easily through the road one and two roadblocks without needing to break any rods, and only gets snagged on Apocalypse in world three while both struggle with the last boss.

[English Language]

Seems fair, Oracle struggles at a few spots and it's abilities take a bit more effort to use than "Push button, win game" like certain other classes have.

Admittedly, some of the trouble I had personally with oracle solo was me coming up with "Farm ALL the Staves of Light" and not budging on that plan for anything else.